West Lafayette bombed last year on turning State St. into a game day plaza when merchants balked. This year? City officials say they’ll hold off again

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – For a second consecutive Purdue season home football opener, the West Lafayette’s sloppy Breakfast Club tradition will have to wait a week to really get going.

The Boilermakers get Northwestern in a rare Thursday night game at Ross-Ade Stadium, meaning there’s a full day of classes gumming up the standard morning of bar hopping in West Lafayette’s Village before drifting up Northwestern Avenue for a Saturday afternoon kickoff.

The same thing went during the 2017 season, when Purdue got its first win of coach Jeff Brohm’s tenure in a Friday night home opener against Ohio.

Breakfast Club bars, with their legions of costumed Purdue students lining up to get in an mingle, took a pass until the next game in 2017. This season, the tradition will be delayed until Sept. 8, with a second-week game against Eastern Michigan. Kickoff: Noon.

Also delayed, most likely for the entire season, will be a long-awaited – and, in some corners, already hated – city plan to turn the main streets in the West Lafayette Village into a pedestrian-only festival plaza on Purdue game days.

Erik Carlson, West Lafayette’s redevelopment director, said the idea, if it gets off the ground, will wait until next year, at least.

“We still have some things to work through,” Carlson said. “Hopefully, we can get to the point where the businesses pick it up and want to do it and make it their own.”

A year ago, in the weeks after West Lafayette reopened a remade State Street to two-way traffic through the Village district, city officials floated the idea of test driving the game day plaza for a Sept. 23 Homecoming game against Michigan.

As part of West Lafayette and Purdue’s $120 million State Street project, the streets entering the Village – on State Street near Chauncey Avenue, on Northwestern Avenue near Columbia Street, and on State near Pierce Street – are equipped with fittings that accept bollard posts to block traffic from roughly Chauncey Hill Mall to Harry’s Chocolate Shop, and from Panda Express to Greyhouse Coffee. The city was anxious to give the feature a go.

Owners and managers of more than 40 businesses in the Village signed a petition protesting the plan. Their argument: The city was setting up businesses to suffer if drivers weren’t able to get through State Street or Northwestern Avenue on what should be one of the busiest days of the year. They also argued that the plan seemed to cater mainly to lines of students waiting to get into a handful of bars for Breakfast Club.

Mayor John Dennis backed away when the stack of signatures landed on his desk at the Morton Community Center. (“Waking up to a phone book-sized petition on your desk the first thing in the morning ain’t great,” Dennis said at the time. “If they say not only ‘no,’ but ‘hell, no,’ we need to find out why.”)

The theory then was: Maybe next year.

This week, officially marking “next year,” Dennis said it makes sense to wait until the entire State Street project – and not just State Street itself – is finished.

Crews are working into this fall to finish streets north and south of campus. Those streets are expected to carry the bulk for Purdue’s everyday traffic – including Purdue faculty and staff getting to and from work – and leaving the two-lane State Street to a slower, more pedestrian- and bike-friendly pattern.

He also said it might be a good idea to monitor how busy Breakfast Club gets with revived interest in Purdue football after last season, when Brohm led the Boilers to an unexpected bowl trip in his first season.

“You know there’s going to be more action,” Dennis said. “There’s just a lot going on to try to do something like (the plaza) now.”

John von Erdmannsdorff, owner of Von’s Shops, 315 W. State St., went door to door in 2017 to circulate the petition.

This week, von Erdmannsdorff said he could see blocking off State Street for special events, but he remained skeptical about keeping cars from getting into the Village during football Saturdays.

“Maybe you could do it during the summer, maybe a dead time, to see how it goes,” von Erdmannsdorff said. “Until then, I think you’re asking for problems.”

Carlson said he has been talking to businesses about reviving the idea. He said the city also has been working with Indiana Excise Police to discuss ways for businesses in the Village to be vendors outside during days when the State Street pedestrian plaza is in place.

Carlson said the city is working with Campus House, which hosts the Starry Night Festival near the corners of Northwestern Avenue, South Street and Chauncey Avenue, on thoughts about expanding that event on Sept. 29.

Beyond that?

Breakfast Club, for at least one more year, as you were.

But just wait for the Eastern Michigan game a week from Saturday. Remember, Thursday classes. The bars, of course, will be open after Thursday’s late game – even if it is a school night.

Reach Dave Bangert at 765-420-5258 or at dbangert@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @davebangert.